If you blink, you might miss it. Pristimantis dorado, may not sound like a golden frog, but the brand new species has just been discovered on the outskirts of Bogotá, in Colombia. The whole nation is rich in frogs, especially this genus, with 205 of the tiny clickers. The males call for the girls in the extremely diverse Andean cloud forests with unusual clicks. Then development proceeds directly, with no tadpole to worry about in the terrestrial habitat and therefore no water needed. At 2650 m (8700') in the Cordillera Oriental, you are likely to find even more species, going by the current rate of discovery.

Mauricio Rivera-Correa, Faride Lamadrid-Feris and Andrew J. Crawford of the Universidad del Atlántico in Barranquilla (and US connections with the active Smithsonian Institute in the area) publish their paper in Amphibia-Reptilia. There is a kind of competition between Colombia and Brazil in counting their species of Amphibia. At the moment the soccer equivalent would have a score of 5-4 to Brazil, and it isn't half time yet!

5 years ago Ines Morales helped us to publicise the chytrid fungus disease that has made many species such as the Panamanian golden frog, Atelopus zeteki. She wrote about The fungus that killed frogs. We can only hope that lab. breeding of the Panamanian and many of these newly-discovered species will conserve some of the animals for the future, as habitat disappears as well as their wild conspecifics. If you blink, you will miss some of these newly discovered and wonderful animals!

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Quantification of the iconic polar bears fate is important as the ice melts ever more readily. Here is the real story we can expect as we struggle to conserve all the species we can, while the world warms inexorably.

One great devil ray species (Mobula mobular) was doing well in the Mediterranean Sea last year, but it is still classed as endangered, whether in Gaza or migrating to the Tuscan Sea. As it isnt a food item, this probably saves it from the fate of its smaller relatives. They are disappearing fast, and there has been little effort at conservation.

When we lose so many animals and plants from South America, often as soon as they are discovered as new species. It is consoling to discover such an animal that seems to be looking after itself, in secondary forest, and with hopes of recovery from population loss. Of course, some smart new conservation effort may be required in the form of forest regeneration and afforestation ----- !

When dolphins are 'rescued' in various countries, the car given seems to be ill-considered. We are simply looking at the success rate which is reported to be low, in most places. They could even end up in commercial aquarium shows, but they certainly rarely make it back to the sea.